Greater concerns for perceived retrogenia in orthodontic than nonorthodontic males

Method: 

A questionnaire consisting of 59 exploratory items about concern for the orofacial area (OFA) together with 33 items from the previously-validated Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ), translated and back-translated into Chinese, was administered to 454  11^thand 12^th-grade students in one nonboarding, coed school (59.8% males) in Taipei. In addition to determining total OFA and BSQ, three questions related to perceived retrogenia and maxillary protrusion were analyzed: Have you worried about: 1.) having a weak chin? 2.) your upper jaw protruding over lower jaw? and/or 3. your lower jaw protruding over upper jaw?

Result: 354 (78%) questionnaires were returned anonymously, with no gender differences, mean age of 16.5±0.56, BMI of 19.5±1.92 for females and 21.6±3.23 for males.  Male Os had significantly higher total OFA of 98.9± 34.71 than 88.4±21.1 (p≤0.01) for NOs, with no significant OFA differences between the O and NO females, both of which had significantly higher total OFA than the males (p≤0.01). The major finding was that O males had greater concern for both perceived retrogenia (p=0.003) and related concern for perceived maxillary protrusion (p=0.040)  than NO males, the correlation being 0.385 at p≤0.005.  No such significant relationship was found for O or NO females.  Moreover, O males exhibited greater concern for perceived retrogenia than O females (p=0.013). While females tended toward Class III, there were no significant differences.

Conclusion: Males self-reporting O exhibited significantly greater concern for perceived retrogenia and maxillary protrusion than NO males or NO or O females.